Supreme Court Tv

Curtail Practice Banning Cameras In The High Court

November 29, 2000|By Dennis J. Hutchinson. Dennis J. Hutchinson teaches constitutional law and legal history at the University of Chicago, where he also edits the Supreme Court Review.

What's wrong with this picture? A state supreme court, castigated as partisan and "overreaching," allows eight major network and cable broadcasts of oral arguments affecting the outcome of the closest presidential election in American history; the highest court in the nation, on the other hand, addresses the same case and even more important constitutional issues Friday before only 300 public spectators.

One more time, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied requests by C-SPAN and CNN to provide one-time-only live televised coverage of Bush vs. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. In formal requests, the networks pleaded with Chief Justice William Rehnquist to allow the coverage and banked on the widely admired "civics lesson," as many from both parties described it, conducted by the Florida court last week. Rehnquist's response was quick and terse: A "majority" of the court continues to think it unwise to depart from the "present practice" of banning cameras from the courtroom.

The justices, a majority of them, that is, apparently feel that their dignity, unlike that of the Florida court, will be compromised by a live, unedited telecast of their proceedings. But is that the real reason? Indeed, do the justices have any compelling reason on their side besides inertia and a majority vote? Consider the usual arguments they raise in the rare instance when they are willing to address the question in more than the one-page letter delivered, in the old-fashioned way--"by hand"--to CNN's Brian Lamb on Monday:

Cameras will negatively affect the proceedings. But C-SPAN demonstrated in a test not long ago that limited fixed cameras are barely noticeable in the massive courtroom, and no sound equipment is necessary beyond the court's own system. The fear that a judge or lawyer may "play to the camera"--another routine fear--is belied by the gravity of all those who participated in the Florida argument, especially by the presiding judge's sharp control over counsel at the outset of the arguments. No one was allowed to rest on rhetoric, and the judges themselves made sure that hard questions were addressed and nice points were fully developed.

Cameras distort what the court does. This argument applies less to live, unedited coverage than to the fear of clips and sound bites. Chief Judge Edward Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia recently complained that television coverage tended toward "backdrop" shots and "sound bites, not in-depth" coverage. But that argument doesn't meet the claim posed by C-SPAN and CNN--that the entire event "would be an immense public service and would help the country understand and accept the outcome of the election." Even if acceptance of the election is not necessarily on the line Friday, viewers would understand better what the most powerful but least understood court in the world actually does when it hears a case.

Television is vulgar. There is really no other way to explain remarks such as those by Justice Anthony Kennedy ("We are not part of a national entertainment network") or Justice David Souter ("The day you see a camera coming into our courtroom, it's going to be over my dead body"). After the Florida court's performance, by judge and lawyer alike, Justice Kennedy's arch dismissal of televised coverage sounds hollow and terribly dated. Souter made his remark off the cuff in a congressional hearing on the court's budget four years ago, but if there is a reasoned position behind his acid comment he has yet to provide it. Nor does he seem to feel any more obliged than the rest of the court, or at least the "majority," to do so.

Self-indulgence. Shortly before he retired in 1993 after 31 years on the court, Justice Byron White admitted that one of his primary reasons for opposing cameras in the Supreme Court was that he knew his privacy would be compromised. "I know it's selfish," he was quoted as saying, but he did not enjoy being recognized on the street and preferred to keep it that way.

Perhaps at bottom that is the most powerful reason behind the court's intransigence on the issue. On Friday the courtroom will accommodate a few hundred public spectators (who will probably stand in line for hours to earn a coveted seat), a handful of members of the Supreme Court bar, and two rows of spouses and guests of the justices in special pews adjacent to the bench. A seat in the "justices' box" is a special prize in Washington, especially when a big case is up. That is a perk of the job, but denying public scrutiny of the court in action should not continue to be one, too.